I am not sure how close I got to the Freightliner Terminal for this picture, but I may have been using a telephoto lens or have simply done an enlargement. In which case I would have taken it from the bottom of Kingsport Close in Portrack. The picture will have been taken around 1969-70.
I don’t have any recollection of the floodlights having been used, but perhaps the light in the background is from the floodlighting…
Photograph and details courtesy of Fred Starr.
Sorry to tell you that this is looking north, Orion is in the south. The “stars” are the probably the result of specks of dirt that had got stuck to an old negative.
But Ken, you reminded me that I got interested in practical astronomy in the summer of 1960, when over the summer holidays I “borrowed” a lens from the Physics Lab at Stockton Grammar. I returned the lens when we came back to school in September. The big problems in those days was smoke pollution, so that the skies were never clear. Today it is light pollution.
Looks like the 3 stars of Orion’s belt you’ve got in there?
Those floodlights helped to maintained just enough light on Albany school field for us to keep playing football that bit later way back in the 70s great days. I think the photo is taken from the Portrack direction because the tree in the background was at the bottom of the black path if coming from Albany Road.
Fred, yes it was flood lit as it was a 24 hour unit. Two trains left around ten at night then two came in. Some containers would be unloaded at night or early morning as the first lorries left at five in the morning then each hour after, drivers took turns for early though not always turning up on time which put the depot out of kilter, those trains had to go loaded or not. I drove through a winter it was often dark until eight, we still left at five so H&S had to be observed, huge trucks and even big container transporters plus yard men are a potent mix.